Stories about the Redlands/Lugonia post office have persisted 125 years after incorporation of the city. Fact and fiction along with historical embellishment continue to beg for an authentic account.

The Lugonia post office became official Sept. 5, 1882, with George A. Cook as the first postmaster. Cook was more than happy to extend the postal business to his store that opened July 28, 1882, on the southeast corner of The Terrace and Orange Street.

Cook realized the mail would make his store the destination of the tri-weekly George Phillips stage from San Bernardino. He could greet new residents, receive supplies, get fresh meat deliveries and also attract Lugonia farmers to his establishment. An additional room was added to the store for the mail responsibilities.

Frank E. Brown bought the store from George Cook in 1885 and moved the Judson & Brown Real Estate firm to the second story of the store. Benton O. Johnson, the brother-in-law of Frank Brown, rented the first story and continued with a mercantile business.

George Cook subdivided his Lugonia Park land, built a home on The Terrace and entered the real estate business in thriving Lugonia.

No doubt the trek from the Residence Tract and Redlands Heights was inconvenient for the new residents of those subdivisions. Scipio Craig, the editor of The Citrograph, had to bemoan advertising for the Redlands News Company using a Lugonia post office address.

Redlands folks petitioned the postal service to establish a new post office in Redlands. They were informed that a new office could not fall within two miles of an existing post office.

This bad news arrived just as the incorporation debate between the Redlands Citrograph and Lugonia Southern Californian heated tempers for the competing communities.

The trip to the Lugonia post office now meant traversing to partisan territory to pay homage to the Lugonia side of the Zanja.

A remedy to the situation came from J.S. Edwards.

R. Quincy Brown reported in 1933 that James S. Edwards, a bachelor, volunteered to pick up Redlanders’ mail and distribute it from his East Cypress Avenue shack. This continued for only a month because the Edwards location was within the two-mile limit and Edwards was rarely home.

To rectify the distance requirement, Redlands mail moved to the J.B. Raynor home on Center Street and Chestnut Avenue. R. Quincy Brown admitted, “My brother, Lewis, and I, carried the mail on horseback between San Bernardino and Redlands for about a month.”

The fact was that the Brown boys were mere lads and trusting them with valuable mail over such a distance was risky. Raynor, however, was reliably home to distribute the mail with a Lugonia post office address.

As downtown Redlands developed, the Residence Tract distribution proved distant with no street railroad until 1888.

Howard Andrews’ story

The post office story pieces continue with Howard Andrews, a lumber store owner with his brother Cyrus, a member of the first City Trustees.

Andrews said Benton Johnson moved his store to the southwest corner of Orange Street and Water Street (Redlands Boulevard) and brought the mail from Lugonia daily to his new store.

The postmaster was required to maintain the Lugonia office headquarters. This “new” location enraged Lugonia folks. Suggestions of a compromise name such as Eastberne failed to entice either Redlands or Lugonia support.

The California Central, also known as Santa Fe Railroad, arrived in April 1888, bringing the mail. Santa Fe offered a site for a post office on Stuart Avenue, resulting in both factions indignant at the suggestion.

Why did both sides oppose the railroad location? Redlanders opposed the location since most Lugonia folks considered all land north of the Mill Creek Zanja as Lugonia.

Lugonia folks learned to hate the site since the Redlands and San Bernardino Railroad began in May 1888 with one engine named Redlands.

This station was on the north side of the Zanja and both railroads called their depots Redlands.

Soon after incorporation the City Council changed the name of Water Street (Redlands Boulevard) to Central Avenue, to further unite the feuding communities.

Judson and Brown renamed Chicago Colony No. 2 Tract along Orange Street The Link to support the council.

L.A. Ingersoll’s story

Another post office story was written by L.A. Ingersoll in his Century Annals of San Bernardino County 1904. He wrote that “while awaiting a final decision from the postal department the people of Redlands took matters in their own hands and arranged for a mail carrier who was paid by subscription and established an office in a small frame building on the corner of Chestnut and Center Street. Here Miss Dora Kiefer taught a little private school and distributed the mail, which was brought from San Bernardino by Mr. Rockwell.”

Edith Parker Hinckley had the same story as L.A. Ingersoll with an extra caveat.

She wrote that this small building “was recognized as the regular Redlands post office and J.B. Campbell was appointed postmaster. Then, mysteriously, in the middle of the night, the building was put on wheels and trundled down town. In due time the postal inspector came around and he discontinued the Lugonia post office!”

Ingersoll wrote that the owner of the small building, H.C. Malone, ordered the postal service to vacate the lot at the corner of Chestnut Avenue and Center Street. Ingersoll really meant Malone owned the lot and not the building.

The building was moved to East Citrus Avenue behind the Academy of Music building on the northeast corner of Citrus Avenue and Orange Street. Months later, the traveling post office moved to East State Street for two more months. The wooden building violated the Judson & Brown lot codicil that forbade wooden structures on town lots. By September 1888 the Redlands post office was in the Union Bank brick block on the northeast corner of Orange and State streets.

Scipio Craig’s story

Scipio Craig and The Citrograph covered the post office story with little tidbits through the two-year period with specific points not mentioned by any of the other sources.

Craig editorialized on the general poor service of the postal service. His October 1887 editorial mentions that mail from San Diego and newspapers including the San Diego Sun and San Diego Union took 10 days to deliver from only 140 miles away.

Craig lamented the lack of post office boxes and few deliveries from San Bernardino to Redlands or Lugonia.

The Lugonia office was considered too small to serve Barton, Terracina, Old San Bernardino, Crafton, Greenspot, Mentone and the Chicago Colony in east Redlands.

Scipio Craig was the first to report that John B. Campbell would be the Redlands postmaster and that his bond was forwarded to Washington Nov. 19, 1887. Craig reported the new Redlands office would be on Palm Avenue west of Center Street in the private school house of Miss Kirkeby.

Miss Kirkeby was asking for students to attend her private school. Evidently her school failed to begin. How busy could the Redlands office be if a school could use the same small building?

Craig followed these reports with this Dec. 10, 1887, update: “Building for the post office will be rushed to completion in ten days. It is located on Palm Avenue just west of Center Street. Postmaster Campbell has received his commission and things will be running in short order.”

In December, Craig reports that the post office had 300 post office boxes and money orders began in October. This is strange since the building was still under construction.

The Citrograph had much to report in January 1888. C.H. Lathrop became the new Lugonia postmaster and on Jan. 28, 1888, the Redlands post office was open.

The New York Tribune congratulated Scipio Craig, president of the Southern California Editors Association, for forwarding postcards informing one and all to address mail to Redlands, Calif.

The post office received good and bad news in March 1888. The 100 new post office boxes arrived but an official eviction order from the building owner asked the postal service to leave.

So Craig crowed, “Our worthy and law-abiding postmaster last week received peremptory notice to vacate the premises then occupied. Rooms are not easy to find. In fact, none were to be had at all, but finally Mr. Campbell was persuaded to let a small house which belonged to him to be used, and Israel Beal snaked it down on State Street, where it was available and the office moved in.”

April 1888 ushered in railway mail service and Miss Dean was hired to assist Campbell in a second window. The little building owned by Campbell was too small and the Postal Service spent funds to expand the Union Bank.

The foundation and walls went up quickly, using Mentone sandstone. The building was completed by September, offering a 20-by-30-foot room.

The same issue of The Citrograph noted the closure of the Lugonia post office by Washington authorities with Craig genuinely sorry for the demise. Office furniture from Lugonia, a safe and equipment moved to Redlands in October. The old post office building in the Residence Tract was sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Railroad mail service brought sealed pouches of mail three times a day. Lugonia residents had to change their address to Redlands and walk to State and Orange streets to get their mail.

Incorporation finally took place Nov. 26, 1888, with a 216-to-63 vote. The official Redlands post office opened 10 months previously, making the incorporation vote a general vote for a community name.

C.H. Lathrop replaced George Cook at the Lugonia post office and officially abolished the office Sept. 27, 1888. J.B. Campbell was the lone postmaster of the Redlands post office beginning in January 1888. So in fact, Redlands and Lugonia both had sanctioned post offices violating the two-mile regulation for eight months.

The incorporation vote was somehow supposed to be a plebiscite on the name of the post office and community. The post office name was secured nearly a year before incorporation. How federal leased property could be removed without permission is another question never posed.

A succession of postmasters

Ira Haight, an 1870s Lugonia pioneer, was appointed postmaster April 1, 1891, by President Benjamin Harrison with a salary of $1,400 yearly. The post office was moved to the northwest corner of Orange Street and Central Avenue, opposite the Baker House Hotel.

Haight was replaced by W.C. Phillips with an appointment by President Grover Cleveland Nov. 7, 1894. With the election of Republican President William McKinley, Isaac Newton Hoag became the postmaster in March 1898. He lived only one month in the position.

Halsey W. Allen succeeded him until July 1902 when William Tisdale became postmaster. Postmasters were appointed by the newly elected president as political patronage plums for political support. No actual postal experience was necessary for an appointment.

The post office building on the northwest corner of Orange and Central was a new building in 1891, replacing the 1888 San Bernardino and Redlands Railroad depot.

The land was purchased by the Southern Pacific and sold to postal authorities. This building was torn down in 1919 when Central Avenue was widened to become the Ocean to Ocean Highway.

The new location was another peace offering to Lugonia since the office was now on the north side of the Zanja until 1903. After 1903, a piano and music store moved into the building and this later became City Market.

Redlands was granted mail carrier service April 1, 1898, but the city was slow to assign postal addresses for the rural community.

Downtown addresses were based on numbers for every 40 feet. With 20-foot frontage on downtown lots, the numbers proved inadequate and renumbering was required. Many residential neighborhoods have been renumbered three times since 1898.

Some early city directories name only the street or cross street as an address. As the orange groves were removed and building tracts became densely built, the old numbers were dropped.

The biggest change in address numbers took place when multi-apartment complexes were built with hundreds of units.

A succession of post offices

Ford, Atwood and Meserve built a three-story building on the northeast corner of Fifth and East State streets, which is now Ed Hales Park. The Redlands post office moved to the first story, which measured 80 by 100 feet, on Feb. 1, 1903. William M. Tisdale, who became postmaster in July 1902, ushered the post office to the new building and remained the postmaster until Dec. 31, 1913.

The Chandler Furniture Store eventually occupied the top two stories. No dissatisfaction with this location was recorded in the newspapers.

Lack of post office boxes required the post office to move again in 1918. Postal business moved to the Woehr block on West State and Fourth streets in December 1918. Postmaster R. Warner Thomas assured the community that the change before the Christmas rush would not impact postal business.

The larger facility offered a money order office, postal savings counter, parcel post windows and a general delivery window. Twice the space was given for post office boxes with locks and the lobby was as large as the old building.

Both men’s and women’s restrooms were conveniently offered. All the carrier vehicles had parking spaces behind the building with a loading dock for efficiency.

The 1918 post office on West State Street was a sacrifice for the war effort in 1917-18. Congressman William Kettner introduced a bill in 1916 for a new $30,000 post office for Redlands. The bill was assured passage until Redlanders urged Congress to apply the funds to the national emergency of World War I. This stalled the post office effort for decades but certainly speaks volumes for “the Redlands way.”

On Dec. 10, 1928, Redlands did receive a new post office, at 200 W. State St. J.F. Wheat was postmaster and E.N. Sturtevant was assistant postmaster.

This small office building had no parking for postal delivery vehicles and was sorely deficient in the number of post office boxes. Parking on West State Street caused concerns for both postal employee deliveries and patrons.

The new post office was a short-term building to fill an enlarging service gap.

Brookside Avenue post office

Each year the Chamber of Commerce wrote letters to Congress asking for a new post office. Congressman Phil D. Swing brought the matter to President Hoover. Hoover placed Redlands on the top of the list of cities for its size but continued to cut the funding to balance the budget in the Depression.

Redlander George S. Biggin led the effort to entice Congress with approval by organizing the property purchase at Brookside Avenue and Eureka Street.

Charles Brown, WPA representative for this district, urged Swing to support post office construction for Redlands. The Architecture Committee, a citizen group predating the Planning Commission, wanted a Spanish Renaissance building to match the A.K. Smiley Public Library, Fox Theatre, La Posada, The Courtyard, Mutual Orange Distributors and other downtown buildings.

Swing introduced special legislation to fund a $120,000 building designed by Riverside architect G. Stanley Wilson. This was going to be a unique government building and radical departure from the usual box-like structures the government built. The bill passed in 1933, awakening the old Lugonia-Redlands hostilities dating back before incorporation.

The old wounds of 1887-88 remained simmering below the surface until the rupture of 1931. In 1931, the postal service announced plans for a new post office for Redlands. The Works Progress Administration program, to stimulate jobs for Redlands, wanted a new office built on the corner of Eureka Street and Brookside Avenue.

Two objections were raised to the new office location. First, the new post office was in a zoned residential area and second, the post office was moving out of the downtown and going south.

All those memories of the Lugonia post office closing returned with pioneers who remembered the old supposed theft. The City Council was inundated with angry old citizens who wanted an explanation.

A model of the new Redlands post office appeared in the Redlands Daily Facts July 15, 1933. The spectacular building with a Spanish dome tower, Spanish tile roof and multiple arched entries was amazing even in newsprint. The North-Moller Company of Jackson, Mich., was awarded the contract. L.P. Scherer was named construction superintendent.

Architect G. Stanley Wilson was given four paragraphs of praise. He designed Riverside City College, an outside theater for 3,000, UC Riverside, a junior college in Brawley, Corona High School and Upland Junior High School. Wilson’s work included the famous Riverside Mission Inn with many arches, columns, brackets and curves, an effect impossible to express in words.

Congressman Phil Swing insisted Congress approve the design, which was in keeping with Southern California history and existing architecture in Redlands. Needless to say, opposition to the location fizzled.

Last year the U.S. Postal Service announced the Redlands Brookside Avenue post office was slated for closure. Reaction in Redlands was predictable. Today, the Brookside Avenue post office’s future remains in limbo depending on the economic health of the U.S. Postal Service.

The post office offers the amateur historian the pitfalls of local history. Which of the stories are true? L.A. Ingersoll, R. Quincy Brown, Howard Andrews, James Edwards, Edith Hinckley and Scipio Craig all present a story or a part of one.

When I first began teaching a local Redlands history class, participants swore that the Lugonia post office was moved from Lugonia to Center Street. I believed the story until indexing The Citrograph led to a “doubting Thomas” syndrome. How could a sizable Cook store be moved to Center Street in 1887?

The Cook Store, or by that time the old Benton O. Johnson store, burned completely in 1895.

In 1988, 100 years since the closing of the Lugonia post office, the Lugonia Station post office opened on New York Street. In the past 26 years Redlands has enjoyed two post offices that are not two miles apart. The large mail distribution center for San Bernardino County is just east of Walmart on Redlands Boulevard.

Ironically, we email most of our correspondence today.

Tom Atchley is a retired Redlands High School teacher and former president of the Redlands Area Historical Society.